NVIDIA had touted for some time: the Tegra 4 processor would be able to beat even the fastest of Qualcomm's Snapdragons - second test r...

NVIDIA had touted for some time: the Tegra 4 processor would be able to beat even the fastest of Qualcomm's Snapdragons - second test result revealed by the company itself. Well, now it has become somewhat more impartial technically. The Microprocessor Publication Report - aimed at professionals directly linked to the development of microprocessors - recently confirmed the superiority of the unrestricted Tegra 4. The processor was considered the fastest chip built on ARM architecture.

Snapdragon 800 also Outperformed

"This performance [guaranteed by Tegra 4] focuses on the new Snapdragon processors," said Kevin Krewell, an analyst at Linley Group and owner of Microprocessor Report. "NVIDIA has offered a wide range of results that clearly show the Tegra 4 and surpassing the APQ8064 (judging by our estimates) also coming Snapdragon 800."

Performance focuses on the new Snapdragon processors.

With 2.3 GHz of processing and other improvements, Krewell still predicts a loss of land for the 800 series of Snapdragon chips. "Based on these estimates, even the best processor from Qualcomm - which should enter the market along with the Tegra 4 - could not overcome the NVIDIA tests".

Qualcomm can still take advantage on smartphones

Despite the respectable firepower of the new Tegra 4, Krewell highlights that Snapdragons can still take some advantage, especially when it comes to smaller devices - which are not always designed to extract the maximum processor.

Qualcomm for Smartphone & NVIDIA for tablets?

"These results seem to have taken the Qualcoom by surprise, exposing some weaknesses in memory subsystems of processors based on Krait architecture," says the analyst. "Anyway, the Qualcoom designed its CPU for energy efficiency, while the Tegra 4 focuses on providing maximum power".

Simply put, while NVIDIA tends to take advantage of larger devices such as tablets, the Snapdragons can still remain the best choice for devices where energy saving is a central factor. It now remains to know when the chips finally integrate both production lines around the globe.